spiral
by volatile.virgin
Summary: He was a flaw. He was a flaw who never felt like a flaw until he realized his love was poisoned.
1. Chapter One: nonexistent

**Chapter One: nonexistent**

David stared blankly at every customer's face. Normally he was congenial with customers and took care to remember the regulars' names, or the new regulars, as his corner changed the minute he realized the Truth, but that day, he was simply trying to stop himself from crying out to the people, from telling them that their lives were lies. Yet they continued scurrying to wherever they were going, certainly and determinedly oblivious to the fact that they didn't exist. He considered this fact for a moment. For awhile, he refused to attempt to truly comprehend what this whole thing meant. He was simply angry, frustrated, and confused. But he could not feel this way without being certain that he eventually had to face the truth: He was Nothing.

Funny how it never _seemed_ like he was Nothing. Well, of course it never _seemed_ like he was Nothing, that's how life was designed. Life was the perfect farce, and when he learned the truth, it became flawed. He was a flaw, a bump in the road, a bubble in existence. He was a flaw who never felt like a flaw until he realized his love was poisoned.

_It was a miracle they even met. She was a part of the system of child labor, a girl who sewed buttons onto shirts for ten hours daily. She passed by his corner going to and from work, going home to a small family. Normally, David did not eye women when he was working; he didn't like to be distracted from the task at hand. Never mind the fact that rarely was a girl interested in him, for he was but a poor boy selling newspapers. She stood out, though; she was perfectly ordinary yet perfectly unordinary at the same time. Thinking back, rarely ever did he understand how a girl so plain-looking, so skinny and frail and dirty and homely, could stand out so. _

Despite the way she looked, she had a very confident air about her, and David felt that she was a very wise person. He didn't know why he thought she would be wise because really, there was no way to know-- Jack was very smart even though sometimes he didn't look it. David grinned at the thought of Jack's face had he heard that. Thinking he was smiling at her, for she was indeed staring at him out of large, dark, vibrant eyes, the only things on her body that still seemed to be alive, she bravely and shamelessly smiled back, clearly thinking to approach him. 

David's grin faded a bit, realizing that she was looking at him, and he turned away to sell papers to an old woman carrying piecework to the factory. He was never one for forward girls; it just didn't seem right to him. It was far too awkward. However, something inside of his gut told him not to look away. It told him that if he didn't speak to this girl, if he let her go, he would be making a terrible mistake. A person who favored reason over instinct, especially when dealing with girls, he tried to ignore it. He couldn't be distracted by a silly girl this early in the day. The instinct gnawed its teeth, forced him to listen, forced him to look at her.

Mouth half-open, he watched as she moved insistently towards him through the throngs of people, yet she said nothing when she arrived in front of him. Bereft of all thought, he said the first thought that entered his mind. "Like to buy a pape, miss?"

She replied easily, "I haven't any money, sorry." David nodded dumbly. He couldn't comprehend why he felt so empty. Why he felt so out of control. Normally he was very good at talking; normally he didn't have to worry about nerves, or whatever force it was that prohibited him from speaking. 

"D'you live around here?" he asked finally, gazing into her expectant eyes. 

"Yes, I live just a few blocks away. I work in the factory over there," she gestured to the smallest one. His eyes followed the length of her arm to the building at the end of her hand and back up to her face. He felt strangely attracted to her, although he knew nothing about her. This contradicted all he had previously thought about the rules of attraction. He had no reason to like a strange girl who was so foreign, so disturbingly forward, and not even one bit physically attractive. The last reason was terribly shallow, he realized, but ignored that fact in favor of finding as many reasons as possible not to like her. "And you are a newsie all day? I saw you in the paper last summer during the strike."

He nodded. Maybe she just liked him because he was some famous strike leader. True, he gained more notoriety after the strike, but that really didn't matter at all to him. He just kept going, he just kept trying to be normal. The fame died down, though, and really, he was just like everyone else. "Yeah, I'm surprised you still remember that photo. I don't even remember what I looked like."

She studied him a moment before asking, "Why would you be surprised?" David blinked, confused by her question. It wasn't accusatory; it was a question out of curiosity.

"I'm not sure. I just figured a lot of people would forget about us. It's been almost a year now." Nodding, she smiled slowly, and this time it spread across her face languidly. In that moment, he found, oddly, that she was almost pretty-- or at least, less... ugly. But he didn't have time for girls; he was only sixteen years old. The time for that would come soon enough. "I'm David, by the way. What's your name?"

"Anna. It's Anna."

Seized with longing, David walked. He walked a path he couldn't remember, he walked a path that was simultaneously so foreign and so familiar. Eventually he was able to grasp where he was going; he was going to his old selling corner. He was going to where they met. Calmly and with ease, he navigated the streets without tripping and falling or running into someone or getting lost. He was nearly there. It was nearly time.

When he reached his old corner, or what he thought was his old corner, he realized that there was something terribly wrong. It was no longer there. He was met with something he had never seen before. The edges of the street around him dissolved into nothing; the factory where she worked was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was simply an open white space, a huge and incomprehensible depth of nothing but white. A part of the city had just disappeared. David looked around to see if anyone else noticed, but everyone else milled about, avoiding the jagged edge right beside his corner, acting as though nothing had happened.

She was destroying his life and everything he knew. She was doing more than that-- she was erasing his entire existence.

* * *

**Note**: This is a working title. I'm barely editing this story, so it will be lacking. 


	2. Chapter Two: search

**Chapter Two: search**

It was disturbing, grossly, intensely, and completely disturbing. The disappearance of a place he knew by heart shocked him completely; he staggered backwards with no regard to the people around him. His hands tingled down to the very tips; he knocked straight into a man in a business suit who threw him a disgusted look and began dusting his jacket with his hand. Strangely enough, he could remember with detail his old corner, the way the factories looked from across the street, the stores surrounding his corner. Yet when he looked once more to see it for real, he was met once again with a disturbingly empty space. His eyes searched about wildly, but he could barely keep them fixed on the space for long before they ached.

So once again he set to walking, dropping his remaining papers, determinedly refusing not to stop until he reached somewhere safe. But where to go? His sister was at home doing piecework with his mother. Kloppman would only scold him for skipping work had he chosen to try the newsboys' lodging house. Struck with something like inspiration, he made his way through the streets, headed to one area where he knew he'd be safe. One area he hoped, with everything he had, that was not yet gone.

Her apartment was usually vacant, and he could never understand why. Furthermore, he could never understand how she could keep the rent. He never saw her mother and father, though he saw traces of their existence when he let his eyes trace the room while he held her. Truly, it was very curious, and she always evaded the topic when he spoke of it, but, blinded by his affections for her, he had decided to wait a bit longer before he tried once more. Now, it seemed, it was too late.

The one-room apartment was dusty and dirty, with two mattresses in separate corners of the room and a black, filthy stove lurking in another corner. He opened the door and it slammed against the wall. The room was just as he remembered it; he walked in and flopped down on her mattress. David's mind was racing; he didn't know that things like that could just happen. The sight of the fragmented street flickered in his mind, frightening him more and more every time. It was difficult to wrap his head around the concept. Even worse was having to put the blame on Anna, his dear, sweet Anna. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps she was merely the scapegoat for a larger force that neither could control. Perhaps she felt just as lost.

Although that thought gave him hope, he knew it was dead wrong. He had a sinking feeling that this was very Anna, and there was nothing that he could do. Disturbingly enough, there was no solution. There wasn't even a coherent problem. And he could trust absolutely no one. If he told anyone, he would probably be committed, and that was the last thing he needed. However, it wasn't just every day that the girl you loved just disappeared, and then the city just started fading into white space, yet nobody noticed...

Was he crazy? Maybe he really did need to be committed. David paced around the room, muttering to himself, trying to grasp the situation. He went over the things he knew: Anna disappeared, but not before letting it slip to him that there was something very, very wrong. She told him that he didn't exist, quietly expanding upon silly theories but growing silent five minutes after she began, and he laughed in disbelief, never believing until she was gone. Soon after her disappearance, he came to grasp her final words and then, it became extremely clear once he saw the jagged edges of the city.

There was virtually no way of finding her. She probably never even had a family, and he knew that she was friendless. It wasn't often that street rats knew all that much about one another, but David figured that perhaps his friends would know something, or would know someone who knew someone who knew something. Seized with the hopes of finding answers, he left the apartment just as hurriedly as he came, seeking out his best friend.

Jack never liked to have just one selling spot; he found it best to be free and uninhibited by a normal corner. He was in the marketplace, standing obtrusively in the path of the people. "Jack!" David called. Surprised to hear David's voice, his best friend turned to see him.

"Hey, Dave," said Jack. "Where's your papers?" David paused, confused, then looked down at his empty arms.

"I have no idea," he said slowly, trying to remember what he could have done with them. Jack raised an eyebrow. Resting a hand on David's shoulder, he leaned closer to his friend.

"David, are you okay?" David shook Jack's hand off of his shoulder, suddenly feeling nervous and confused.

"Have you seen Anna?" Jack gave David a strange look.

"Who?" he responded. David's jaw dropped; seeing this, Jack looked confused. "I'm getting the feeling that I should know who you're talking about, here. What was her name? Anna?"

"Anna," David repeated, as if Jack had gone insane. "My girl, Jack."

"Hmm, oh her?" Jack replied vaguely, as if he really still had no idea.

"You don't remember her?" asked David in disbelief. Jack shrugged.

"I didn't know. You never said much about her. You aren't real public about things like that, Dave. I don't even remember you having a girl. You sure you aren't making this up? If you need a girl, we can find you one..."

"No, no!" David cried, grasping his head in frustration. "I don't need to find another girl; I need to find this one! The one I want is impossible to find!" The people were heading home, another day of shopping complete, passing the pair of boys and giving them strange looks.

Jack noticed this and said, concerned, "Listen, Dave, why don't you go home and have a rest, huh?" David nodded dumbly.

"Yeah, I'll see you later," he mumbled, walking off and disappearing into the crowd.


	3. Chapter Three: dream

**Chapter Three: dream**

It made sense that Jack wouldn't remember. David rarely spoke of Anna unless he needed advice or had to turn down an invitation to do something with the boys. He navigated through the streets without thought. He stared at himself through the glass shop windows, watched his pale face and the gaslight behind him. Stress and panic wore on him, and it showed. Sighing, he started walking home once more.

He trudged up the stairs to the apartment, mind racing with thoughts of Anna, of the day's strange occurrence, of his apparent insanity. He remembered entering the apartment at a different time, a few months ago.

_He opened the door for her, and when she stepped in, immediately she smiled._

It was at the time in the relationship in which he wished that she met his family. She got along quite well with both of his parents, and she and his sister bonded instantly. She was the first girl David brought home, and his mother was sure to try very hard not to like her. When they walked in the door, his mother had a dour look on her face, mouth pinched in a firm downturn. Though she quickly changed to a polite smile and handshake, it was not enough to save everyone from seeing it.

He strode through the door, casting a dirty look at his mother. Though he was clearly upset by his mother's determination to disapprove, his lover took it calmly and was as cheerful as possible.

"Lovely to meet you, ma'am," she said, shaking hands and grinning. "We would have been here a bit earlier, but I had to work a few extra hours; you see, I need the money."

As she made her way to the other members of the family, stopping to curtsy to Les, who laughed, David hugged his mother, whispering in her ear, "Please, be nice." Esther gave a scandalized look. He returned with a raised eyebrow and turned to greet the rest of his family.

Mayer ushered the pair further inside the apartment and bade them to sit at the dinner table. "Esther has cooked something special for you two." Anna sniffed the air.

"It smells wonderful. You really didn't have to go through all of that trouble, though." 

Esther smiled and said, "Nonsense. You're our guest." Esther meant that, David knew. She may not have wanted her son to be involved in a relationship yet, but Anna was still a guest, and he knew she would treat her as one. 

Upon his entrance, Esther greeted him with a kiss, but her face fell when she pulled away. "Now, what's the matter, David?"

Mayer looked up from the newspaper. "Awful late, aren't you? Your brother came in nearly an hour and a half ago." He turned a page. "There's still soup on the stove and bread on the counter." 

He ducked away from his mother's concerned glance and headed into his room, insisting on tiredness.

Les, who began selling his newspapers with Boots at the beginning of the previous month, was already sleeping soundly in his bed. David hadn't realized that he was so late. He undressed and yawned. He was exhausted and drained, but he didn't want to sleep. Mind clogged with fragmented thoughts and distorted memories, he thought it would never rest. Yet, somehow, his eyes closed soon after his head descended upon the pillow.

_He was sitting on her mattress in her apartment, forearms resting on his legs, head bowed despondently. The grain of her wood floor was faded with age, but it swam before him, and he fell into the sea of its pattern, sitting in the knots with hands pressed against the loops surrounding them. The loops closed in on him, and he choked with surprise and confusion. He was drowning. He could hear music, the faded tinkling sound of his mother's favored music box, stale notes carried in a gust of whirling wind._

His head felt a sharp pain and then throbbed dully. He put his hands over his face and leaned forward in dizziness. "David?" A voice asked, sound clear but quiet and tone uncertain. His head snapped up quickly with a sharp intake of cold air and his eyes slowly focused.

"Anna?" He gasped in disbelief. And there she was, still pale and dirty, but wearing a dress he'd never seen before. It was clearly bright and clean and white underneath the blood. Blood was smeared all over the dress and her body was covered with small cuts. "What happened? Who did this to you?" She smiled faintly and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She held a small gold locket in her hands. They were trembling. "I'll be fine; don't you worry," she said. "I love you, David." What could have happened? His mind and body shook with the thought. "Anna... A-anna... are you... are you alive?" "Yes, I'm fine," she said, this time more insistent. She sighed. "I only have a short while. David, I know you're probably mad at me for not explaining everything, but... I just couldn't bring myself to tell you. I want to come back; I really do. But things can't ever be the same between us."

"Why not?" He asked desperately. "Where have you gone? Why is everything disappearing?"

"I'm surprised you're not mad at me," she said calmly. Her tone changed to one of infinite sadness. "David, how long could I go on loving someone who doesn't even exist?" His heart sunk as she said those words. She bit her lip, as if what she said were a painful mistake. Shifting uncomfortably, she glanced at a spot to his right that he couldn't see. "I need to leave now... I'm sorry."

"Wait, what? Why do you have to go?" He asked, panicked. But as he spoke, she disappeared. 

He awoke an hour later, sweating on his bedroom floor, blankets twisted tightly around his legs. His head ached from a bump on the back. It was just a dream. But he couldn't help but think it was a sign.


End file.
